Jim Draper

Email: draperjr@gmail.com
Website: http://www.jimdraperart.com/
Video:

Jim Draper, a Mississippi native, has called Florida home for over a decade. He travels throughout the state, investigating the remnants of an ancient, rapidly disappearing landscape. Inspired by the natural beauty of the coastal topography and attuned to the preservationist needs of the environment, Draper abstracts details of indigenous flora and fauna, transforming them into characters in his evocative, romantic narratives. Drapers paintings embody the beauty of a naturalistic world, fused with an expressionistic flair unique only to him. Each painting evolves from a raw, naked, isolated form into a portrait enmeshed in a matrix of saturated color, singularly pressed into a rectangular format: a flamingo, an egret, a hand, and a palm tree. It is a rare combination that attracts people to his paintings, as the permutation frees people, allowing them to embrace the surreal and escape the world around them.